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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30017346">"Watch me."</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorinExile/pseuds/AuthorinExile'>AuthorinExile</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fictober 2020 [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dungeons &amp; Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons &amp; Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Autism, Bards, Canon Autistic Character, Carnival, Child Abuse, Childhood, Children, Circus, Fantastic Racism, Fantasy, Gen, Magic, Magic-Users, Mollymauk Tealeaf Cameo, Origin Story, Orphanage, Orphans, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, They don't use that word because Fantasy Setting, Tieflings, Wizards, but that's what it is</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:08:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30017346</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorinExile/pseuds/AuthorinExile</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tanara's life does not begin easily. Luckily, there are some good people in the world, however few, and they give her a new beginning.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mama Maeve &amp; Her Kids, Tanara &amp; Oranei | Bliss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fictober 2020 [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147928</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>"Watch me."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Tanara is one of my PCs turned NPCs when I became DM. I've never really gotten to explore her character as well as I'd like, so now I'm writing about her. Might play in this universe a little more sometime. Who knows?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Tanara is small for her age and painfully alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know why she’s alone. Just that she is. Just that she’s been alone for a very long time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had a family, once. She remembers that. She remembers the smell of Mother’s perfume, and the shine of Father’s silver horn bands, and the laughs of other children--not siblings, but still family in the ways that counted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She remembers smoke and fire and someone yelling about tieflings and magic and demons and </span>
  <em>
    <span>purge it</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She remembers her mother sobbing and running and hiding her in the forest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that’s all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mother didn’t come back, so Tanara had made her own way out of the forest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took...a very long time. So long, in fact, that her boots had worn through completely by the time she found a city. She had abandoned them in a tree, tying the laces together and slinging them over one branch. She had hoped they might be useful to someone else, one day. Or maybe that a passing Fae might be amused instead of offended and be nice to her. By the time she entered the city, her foot coverings were nothing more than scraps of cloth torn from her ratty dress.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In truth, she likes this better than the boots, so she never bothers to replace them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turns out that life on the streets is a lot less fun than her books had told her. It’s a lot hungrier and a lot colder and a lot meaner. Especially for a child. Double especially for a tiefling child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one wants to be caught helping a tiefling child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara scraps and steals and fights for everything she has. She is given nothing. Everything she gains begins and ends with herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does not trust easily, and she does not share at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When another tiefling child appears in the corner of her eye, she tenses up and holds her bag closer to her. It’s not much of a bag--made of an old potato sack and currently empty--but everything Tanara has she took for herself. She is possessive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other tiefling is purple with blue hair and solid red eyes and deeply black horns that swoop back from her temples. Her tail is flat and finned, like a sea serpent’s, and she has small black hooves that </span>
  <em>
    <span>clip-clop</span>
  </em>
  <span> as she approaches. Her dress is simple and dyed the same bland gray that so many cheap clothing items come in in this city. She tilts her head at Tanara inquisitively.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara is so offended that she forgets to stay silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a </span>
  <em>
    <span>tiefling</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other child looks Tanara over, takes stock of the differences between them, and says, “Are you</span>
  <em>
    <span> sure</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara bristles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows, is painfully aware, of how different she is from other tieflings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara’s skin is not purple or blue or red. It is bronze, deep and warm and almost orange when she blushes. Tanara does not have horns or hooves. She does not even have hair. The top of her head is covered with a thin layer of scales, more copper than the even bronze of the rest of her. These scales dip over other parts of her too, scattered like freckles over her cheekbones and her chin and down the curve of her spine. All over her spine, in fact, as thick as those on her head, which she knows because she sheds the skin there like a snake when she has a growth spurt, and it itches something </span>
  <em>
    <span>fierce</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Her feet are small and delicate and wrapped in cloth and definitively </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> even vaguely hooflike. Even her eyes are not the solid color of the other child’s crimson orbs. Tanara’s eyes are bright orange irises in the white sclera, and she knows they are the only part of her that even slightly resembles her human mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she knows what she is, despite her appearance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I’m sure,” she snaps, baring the teeth that are as sharp as any other tiefling’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other child looks her over and nods once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” she says with a little shrug. “My name is Oranei. What’s yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m Tanara,” she says, too curious now to continue being so defensive. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fact that this is the longest, least hostile conversation she’s had in months may also factor in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neat,” Oranei says, apparently sincerely. “Do you want to have dinner with us? We could play dolls.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara wants to say yes to a hot meal and a chance to play more than she’s wanted anything ever, but she isn’t stupid, and she isn’t new to being a street urchin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s ‘us’?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me and Mama Maeve and the other kids. You could come eat dinner with us,” Oranei pauses, suddenly uncomfortable. “U-Unless you’ve gotta get back to your folks or somethin’. That’s fine, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara shakes her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I… I can come.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oranei’s answering grin is brilliant and beaming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama Maeve turns out to be an elderly elf, older than any elf Tanara has ever seen, with a kind smile and sharp eyes. The “other kids” are all clearly orphans, but it also becomes apparent that they’re the specific type of orphans no one else will take in. There’s a set of tiefling twins with dark red skin, a young genasi girl with fin-like ears, and a small goblin child. Mama Maeve is serving dinner to this assortment of children with a small smile that shifts abruptly into concern when Oranei walks into the room. She looks Tanara over carefully before smiling and quietly setting another place at the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Oranei, I see you’ve made a friend. Come in, little one. Come on in and introduce yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara does just that, and she fits into Mama Maeve’s household so easily that it’s as if she’s belonged there forever. To her own surprise, she relaxes so completely that she nearly falls asleep in the middle of Oranei’s surprisingly intensive lecture on the proper way to build dolls out of straw and sticks. The ‘nearly’ is only because Mama Maeve’s hand wakes her when it lands on her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tanara,” she says gently, “do you have somewhere to go?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-Yeah. Yes ma’am, I mean, sorry. I didn’t mean to overstay my welcome, I’m sorry, I just--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, no, child,” Mama Maeve says so gently. “You haven’t overstayed anything. I just wanted to know if anyone would be worried about you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara keeps her eyes on her swinging feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she admits quietly, feeling ashamed without knowing why. “No, I don’t have anybody.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s great,” Oranei suddenly shouts. “That’s really great! There’s a spare bed in my room. Swilly can’t stay in there ‘cause she’s just a baby.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘M not a baby,” the genasi says softly, trying and failing to cross her arms properly as she pouts. “‘M a whole toddler ‘n everythin’.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Oranei ignores her and continues arguing her case. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, you could stay with us forever! Can’t she, Mama Maeve, can’t she, please?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mama Maeve sighs softly at the volume and examines Tanara.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are more than welcome to stay, if you’d like. Just don’t let Oranei pester you into anything, alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does not stay that night, but she does come back for dinner every few days. Then she comes back every day for dinner and playdates. And then, one day, she shows up on Mama Maeve’s doorsteps with all of her worldly possessions bundled up in her potato sack bag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oranei gasps in delight and drags her inside, and Mama Maeve gives her a kind, knowing smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The spare bed in Oranei’s room is already made up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tanara slots into place in Mama Maeve’s home like she was the piece missing from the household’s puzzle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She and Oranei get along swimmingly, like two halves of the same whole.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s ‘cause we’re sisters,” Oranei says seriously one night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But we don’t have the same parents,” Tanara says, utterly confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oranei scoffs and rolls her eyes. With all the self-possessed knowledge of any seven-year-old, she says, “That don’t matter at all, Tanara. Besides, I didn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> my folks, so maybe we </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> have the same parents, and you just don’t know it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara doesn’t correct her. She likes having Oranei as a sister. Oranei is the only person besides Mama Maeve who doesn’t think she’s weird because she doesn’t wear shoes or because the feeling of cotton makes her want to scream or because she can’t hear someone right beside her if someone across the street starts talking. Oranei didn’t even laugh when Tanara talked about the practical applications of dragon’s blood for </span>
  <em>
    <span>two hours</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All Oranei ever said about any of it was, “It’s okay. I can’t eat coconut cakes. It’s not the </span>
  <em>
    <span>taste</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she insisted at Tanara’s look of confusion, “it’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>texture</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>sucks</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And if Swilly makes me pet that velvet bunny one more time, ‘m gonna scream.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Tanara thinks Oranei might be the same type of weird that Tanara is, and Tanara’s okay with that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara sees magic for the first time at a carnival. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had rolled into town for the week, and Mama Maeve had decided that it was just the type of treat the children deserved. Everyone had received a handful of copper to spend on snacks and games and been assigned a buddy, and they were to meet Mama Maeve at the entrance to the tent in exactly two hours to get dinner and go home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oranei had spent all of her money and half of Tanara’s on candy before they even looked at the games, but since she shared, Tanara didn’t really mind much. The only things Tanara was interested in were the acrobatics show that was starting soon and the game where you got to knock over glass bottles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara, who had spent her time in the forest hunting with a sling, has </span>
  <em>
    <span>excellent</span>
  </em>
  <span> aim. She wins toys for everyone and a pretty scarf for Mama Maeve just by playing the bottle game. She’d thought she was done, but Oranei takes the last coin and uses it to play a music game that she excels at. When she’s done, she hands a small lizard toy, weighted with sand that makes it delightfully heavy, to Tanara.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You shouldn’t have’ta win your own toys, goofy. ‘S what I’m here for.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanara had been so touched that she’d nearly cried, but Oranei had panicked before she could start.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, no! We’re gonna miss your show, c’mon!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They rush to the tent, ducking and weaving around people’s legs, and when they finally manage to secure seats at the very edge of the ring, it proves to be worth it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That show was beautiful not only for the skill and effort that had clearly gone into it but also for the impact it had on Tanara.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of the human performers had revealed that he could breathe and manipulate fire with only a few simple chemicals, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> had been cool. A tiefling, similar in coloration to Oranei and wearing the most ostentatious coat Tanara had ever seen, had juggled swords to the delighted cheers and frightened gasps of the children all around the ring, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> had been </span>
  <em>
    <span>amazing.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And then a half-elven woman stepped silently forward and waved her hand, and a row of imps had poofed into existence from nowhere. With nothing more than a few gestures and whispers, they began following the sway of her hands, flipping and dancing and singing, and Tanara’s eyes had been locked on the wisps of purple magic free-floating away from the half-elf’s eyes and hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to do that, someday,” she promises herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, dance? Tanara, you could do that </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Oranei giggles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Tanara says with a smile. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span>. One day, I’m going to wave my hand and be surrounded by things I can control.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pfft, no you ain’t. You gotta have money and stuff to be a wizard, Tany.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll find a way. I swear it. Just you watch me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Oranei, seeing the look on her sister’s face, nods and does not object again.</span>
</p>
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